Day 367

I feel poor today. I usually pay bills around this time of the month, but today there were a couple of extra checks to write. Property taxes are due. I never used to think about property taxes when I had a mortgage. The property taxes are built into your mortage payment and you don't really notice them. It is only when you pay the mortgage off that you begin to notice just how much the government is taking for the privilege of letting you own a house. I hate these property taxes because they always come due at the end of the year when there are a lot of other obligations anyway. What can you do though? You either pay the tax or lose the property.

When I discovered that I wasn't completely broke after paying all the bills, I decided to buy a few things online. I must be the world's worst online shopper. Every time I try to buy something, I find myself calling the company's help line to ask why the whole process isn't working as I expected. Today, when I tried to check out, the website kept charging me postage, even though there was a big banner on the website landing page saying that all postage was free from now until Christmas. When I finally reached the help desk, the conversation went kind of like this: "I'm trying to check out and I can't find the free postage option on your shipping menu." "Let me look at your ticket sir, and see what you are ordering." "OK, I"ll wait" A short pause and then I hear "Sir, that item doesn't qualify for free postage." "Why not? Your website says you are offering free postage on everything you sell until Christmas." "Well, everything except the item you're buying....we still have to charge postage on that."

This kind of thing happens to me more than you might think. There's always a Catch-22 that lets them weasel out of the sweet deal I thought I was getting. I went ahead and ordered anyway, but the experience was irritating. Catch-22 scenarios like this are commonplace when I take my car to be repaired. I'm starting to realize that online shopping can be just as confusing.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I never really caught up on things after spending Tuesday in the hospital. I guess it doesn't take much to throw me off schedule. Hey, weekends are for catching up though. Tomorrow, I'll catch up on everything. And if I don't? Well, there's always Sunday.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 366

I feel a lot better today. I'm almost back to my old self again. It's still surprising to me when a doctor delivers exactly what they promised. Too many times you try something your doctor suggests and end up feeling worse than you did before. At least this guy didn't just give me another pill to take. I'm tired of all these pills. Every time I listen to one of those pharmaceutical company commercials on TV and hear the legal disclaimer at the end telling people that the pill can cause everything from hair loss to sudden death, I wonder why we've grown to depend on pills so much. I'll take a guy with a space-age laser any day of the week.

Gremlins are getting into some of the older websites I've designed. Increasingly, I'm discovering that things I designed five years ago just don't look right in modern browsers. I had to re-code something today that looked good several months ago, but now looks horrible when viewed using the latest version of Firefox. Luckiy, I was able to fix the problem, but looking at what I'd done before made me realize that I was a pretty sloppy designer five years ago. Live and learn I guess. By the time I bring my current crop of mistakes up to code, I imagine that the web will have morphed into something entirely different again.

I got a call on my cell phone today and it startled me. I get so few calls on this phone that at first I thought the ring tone noise was the sound the phone makes when the battery is fully charged. It's still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that phones are for incoming messages too. I mostly just use them for outgoing messages. Truthfully, I mostly just use my iPhone to take pictures with. It's got a great little camera.

Now that I'm getting more familiar with Facebook, I'm starting to wonder whether it's rude to ignore game requests. I really don't have the time to play those Facebook games, but I'm starting to get a lot of requests. I don't even know what half of them mean, but usually they have something to do with Farmville. Hey, don't be offended if I don't play Farmville with you. I've still got watches to photograph.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 365 - Blogiversary

I think I picked the right name for this blog. On a day where my doctor said I should relax and take a long hot bath, I celebrated my first blogiversary by doing what I always do. I worked. I tried to make a foolproof map for a client who said that Google maps were sending his customers to the wrong place. I added links to a Facebook fan page for a company that only has four fans. I tried to understand why my financial advisor was in such a hurry to get me to buy something today after ignoring me for three months.

I did these mundane chores while trying to pass broken pieces of the kidney stones that the surgeon broke apart with his laser yesterday. I thought I was home free when I was released from the hospital, but evidently it is not uncommon for pieces of the stones to be left behind after the proceedure. All in all, it felt more like a day to simply endure than a day of celebration.

The day did deserve a celebration though. At least a small one. Today was a milestone for me. I completed an entire year of blogging without missing a single day. Each day ended with a new post and a new photograph. I became a more disciplined writer this year and in the process, I made new friends, became part of a larger community of bloggers and gained some valuable insights into where my life was headed.

I thought my life was boring before I started the blog. Nothing has really changed, but I feel more connected now. I think that writing everything down one day at a time has made me a bit more appreciative of what I already have in life and a lot less likely to whine about what I don't have. It's really not a bad life. I'm active in animal rescue. I have a few clients who still depend on me. I have Janet and two of the best dogs in the world. That's more than enough for me. If I started this blog five years ago, every day would have been a major whine fest. I don't feel that way any more. I'm still a bit cynical and I don't always feel like getting up in the morning, but at least I can acknowledge now that there's a reason why I'm here on this earth.

Year two is likely to be very much like year one. I don't think that's a bad thing though. There are still plenty of Dalmatians who need a home. I lost my largest client this year, but was able to replace the billing by adding three smaller clients and doing a lot of hard work. I intend to keep working and keep learning. Hey, I may have been the last person on the planet to get a cell phone, but I did get one this year. I finally got a Facebook page as well. Who know what next year will bring. It might be hard to top a year where Dot and Dash got on the evening news and I was selected to be in Paypal ads, but it's worth a try.

I'll continue taking things one day at a time. I'll write it all down. And I'll do my best to appreciate each day as it comes. I hope you guys will continue the journey with me, because I've certainly enjoyed having you along for the ride.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 364

Getting kidney and bladder stones removed isn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but it certainly could have been a lot worse. I don't like hospitals. I'll have to admit though that the doctors and nurses at Medical City couldn't have been nicer. I struck up a conversation with my anesthesiologist and discovered that he took his cat to one of my veterinarian clients. It's a small world. I think I may have taken pictures of the anesthesiologist's daughter while she was working as an intern for the veterinarian. I couldn't really remember however. I've taken lots of employee pictures. The anesthesiologist said his daughter couldn't decide whether to become a writer or a vet. I told him that she should stick with veterinary medicine. There aren't many unemployed vets, but there are tons of unemployed writers. As the drugs started to kick in, the last thing I remember was my surgeon and the anesthesiologist talking about dogs.

When I woke up, I remember telling the surgeon that I didn't want to be catheterized if at all possible. Too late. I already was, and I ended up being wheeled out of the hospital with a bag full of pee strapped to my waist. That old rule that says the customer is always right doesn't seem to apply to doctors. They're going to do whatever they want no matter what you say. I'm sure that most doctors get sick of listening to me anyway. I'm always suggesting that they try treatments that my veterinarian has used on my dogs.

My day at the hospital put me a bit behind with my work, but I'll have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow. Based on my current condition, I doubt if I'll feel like going anywhere. On the eve of my first blogiversary, I'll have to admit that it was a pretty interesting year. I didn't miss a single day either, which is amazing for a lazy guy like me. Come back tomorrow and share a little virtual birthday cake with me. I hope all of you will join me for another year.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 363

I had to do my pre-admission check-in for my surgery tomorrow at Medical City. Not surprisingly, this ate up a big chunk of my day. It's a total mystery to me why there isn't a master patient database somewhere that all these doctors could just subscribe to. Everyone asks you exactly the same questions, over and over again. Yes, I had knee surgery back in college, but I certainly don't remember who the doctor was. Yes, I take blood pressure medication, but don't ask me to spell the name of the pill. Why do they give drugs names like Pantoprazole and Propranolol anyway? Nobody can spell words like this. Most people can't even pronounce them correctly. And then there are the questions like "Do you have religious beliefs that would cause you to refuse treatment?" Uh, if I did I probably wouldn't be sitting here in this chair talking to you. The one that always gets me is "Have you been to this hospital before?" Jeez, all this paperwork you're collecting and you don't even know if I've been here before. What do you do with this paperwork anyway?

At some point during the afternoon, a nurse handed me some papers and asked me if everything looked correct. "What's this number mean?" I asked her. "Is this my cholestrol level?" She gave me this deadpan look and said, "No John, that number is your age."

When I got back to the office, I had all sorts of little website problems to fix. One of my clients was having their Grand Opening today. I've been hoping to get the details about the Grand Opening for several weeks now, but never was able to get any answers. Left to my own devices, I just changed the main page to say "Now Open for Business." That ought to cover things for a day or two. Another client wanted me to shoehorn five pages of information into a single nested table cell. Needless to say, this broke the layout apart. I don't think I'm ever going to design a website using nested tables again. Nobody wants to edit their content to fit neatly inside these tables anymore. They'd rather have their site function like a sprawling Facebook wall that scrolls down forever. Personally, I think this looks messy, but what do I know?

I made the mistake of eating a big dinner tonight, mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat anything tomorrow. Now I feel drowsy. I should never eat a big dinner. A big breakfast usually puts me in a productive mood for the entire day. A big dinner just puts me to sleep.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 362

Today was a cleaning day. We have these cleaning days periodically when so much stuff acumulates around the house that you can't get from one room to the next without tripping over something. Janet seems to relish starting fresh and has no qualms about throwing things away. I tend to just move things from one pile to another. I don't know why it is so hard for me to throw things away, but I can always come up with at least ten reasons to keep some dust gathering object I haven't used in five years.

At last Friday's Dalmatian Rescue Casino Party, all the dealers were supposed to wear a black turtleneck under their dealer vest. I don't wear turtlenecks much anymore, but I knew I had a few tucked away somewhere. As I dug through the dresser drawers in search of the illusive black turtleneck, I realized that I had tons of perfectlty nice clothes that I hadn't worn in ages. They were all neatly stacked underneath the clothes I wear everyday. Rather than dig through a stack of clothes for something new to wear, I would just wear whatever was on top of the stack over and over again. I eventually found a black turtleneck to wear to the casino party, and in the process, I also found a bunch of clothes that were so old that even I didn't mind tossing them. I like to find things like this that I can make a big show of throwing away on cleaning day in hopes that it will draw attention away for all the other junk I'm still planning to keep.

The keeper junk that won't fix in the house anymore usually winds up in the storage warehouse. The problem I'm having is that the storage warehouse has gotten so full that I'm going to need another storage warehouse soon. Recently, when I was over at my storage room, I accidently knocked over a stack of boxes and trapped myself in the back of the room. It took me at least ten minutes to climb over all the rubble and reach the door again. Ithought it was going to be like one of those mining disaster stories you see on TV. When I cleaned everything up, I realized that I didn't even know what is in many of these boxes anymore. Unfortunately, whenever I try to throw one of the boxes away, I usually become fascinated by the contents and decide to keep it a little while longer. I don't know whether I accomplished much today or not. I managed to throw away several pounds of old underwear and unstylish shirts, but couldn't bring myself to part with anything else. Four bulky studio lighting stands went to the storeroon, along with a watch timing machine I never learned how to use and a laminating machine I cant find supplies for anymore.

Tomorrow I've got to go to Medical City for pre-admission check-in prior to Tuesday's surgery. I don't know why they wouldn't let me do this on Tuesday morning, but they seem determined to make me waste as much of my time as humanly possible. I've already spent more time filling out paperwork than the surgery itself is going to take.

I still haven't fully recovered from this weekend's full calendar of dog events. I'm yawning as I type this and think I'll go to bed early tonight. A good night's sleep never hurt anyone.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 361

Today was the last of our three Santa Paws pet picture events for Dalmatian Rescue. I lost count of the number of dogs we photographed today, but there were definitely quite a few. We had a steady stream of customers from the moment we opened the doors this morning until we wrapped things up late in the afternoon. We were shooting inside one of the doggie care care play areas at Waggin' Tails Dog Daycare and by the end of the day Santa and I were smelling pretty doggie ourselves. Considering the number of dogs we photographed, the day went remarkably smoothly. All the dogs were well behaved, with the possible exception of one who tried to bite Santa's beard off. People take their dog's Christmas photo pretty seriously. I had to take more than 100 shots of one dog because his owner really wanted a picture where their dogs tongue wasn't hanging out. After trying every trick we knew, I finally got the shot she wanted.

After we wrapped up the photo event, I came home and took Dot and Dash on their evening walk before we left again for another doggie event. This time it was the annual Christmas party for our Wednesday evening dog training group. I was hungry after the long day up at Waggin' Tails, so it was nice to be able to be able to enjoy a traditional Southern Christmas meal catered by Celebration Restaurant. The party was at a lake house within walking distance of our house, but we drove anyway. We had a Chinese gift exchange after dinner and after all the horse trading and gift stealing was over, Janet and I wound up with a cute wicker picnic basket filled with stuff your dog would enjoy on a picnic. The most coveted gifts were dog blankets and dog beds, but we did pretty well with our picnic basket. At least we didn't leave the party with a sack full of poop bags like one guy near us did.

Emmitt got adopted today and we did a special Christmas picture for his new owners. I was worried that nobody would want to adopt an eleven year old dog when Emmitt entered the rescue program, but he found a wonderful home with a lady who was actually looking for an older dog. Dogs like Emmitt are is why we have the endless fundraisers and spend our weekends doing events like we did today. Making sure that every Dalmatian has a home may not be as grand and glorious as saving the whales or stopping global warming, but it certainly works for me.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 360

I got a glimpse of the future today and it wasn't pretty. My friend Harry Harrison called me this morning and asked me to take a look at the website he was launching for his new book. The website looked great and I asked him who his designer was. Harry said he did the website himself on his laptop using iWeb. I'm doomed. The website Harry showed me was just as professional looking as anything I do for my clients. Harry and technology have never been friends. If he's doing his own websites now, pretty soon Janet will be doing them. I often wonder how I'm going to earn a living five years from now. The Internet has democratized virtually everything I do. You can buy fantastic stock photos on the Internet for just a few dollars. There are inexpensive, professional looking web templates that can be customized for just about everything. A lot of people have phones that can take better movies than my expensive and obolete Beta-SP equipment. What's a creative boy to do?

I got a knock on my door this morning and it turned out to be a guy who wanted to look at my Defender 90 in the driveway. He had just bought one of these vehicles for himself and I guess he was very fond of them. At any rate, I'm glad he stopped by. Turns out the guy was a restoration specialist who was remodeling a house down the street. I showed him a few things that were falling apart on my house and he said he said he could fix them. The guy also collects watches and unlike many people working in the construction business in Dallas, he speaks perfect English. If this guy is any good, it will be the luckiest thing that has happened to me all month. Good contractors are really hard to find.

I just finished packing up all my photo equipment for tomorrow's Santa Paws photo event. I've got my website work for the week finished as well. It's been a very busy day. As soon as I finish today's blog entry, I'll take the dogs on their evening walk and then it will be time to transform myself into a roulette dealer for this evening's Dalmatian Rescue Casino Party. I usually don't post to the blog this early, but I know I'll be too tired to do much of anything when I get home. There'll still be EC and Adgitize dropping to do later, but I can do that in my sleep. Too bad I couldn't get one of you guys to do my clicking for me.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 359

I wish I could find the brake pedal and slow down the rest of the year a bit. There is simply too much going on. Tomorrow evening, Dalmatian Rescue is hosting another casino party and it's time to be a roulette dealer again. On Saturday it's going to be another long day of pet pictures at Waggin Tail Dog Daycare. I've got to have surgery next Tuesday. Oh, and next week is my blogiversary too. I've been wanting to do something original and exciting, but I still can't decide what to do. It will probably be a last minute decision, like everything else in my life.

My Dad would have been 93 today if he were still alive. He passed away quite a while ago though. It used to be easy to remember his birthday because it was two days after Pearl Harbor day. Now, I find it hard to remember anymore. I find it hard to remember a lot of things. I've been on Facebook long enough now that the friends from high school are starting to resurface. Some of these people I remember well, but others don't even ring a bell. I think my brain is kind of like a tape loop. Everything in the present tense is sharp and clear, but before these experiences can find a permanent home in my long-term memory, they all get erased and replaced by something new.

There wasn't much worth remembering today anyway. I spent a couple of hours doing year-end accounting. I went to the post office and bought a roll of stamps and some envelopes. I called Marquis Whos Who and asked if they would stop the ridiculous amount of spam they were sending to my inbox everyday. Turns out it wasn't the real Who's Who that was sending the mail. It was a scam designed to capture your identity. Somehow I kind of suspected that. It also turns out that I'm not even in the Who's Who in America book anymore either. They said I went so many years without updating my profile that they just dropped my bio from the book. Oh well, easy come, easy go. Did I want to be reinstated? Hmmm... Not really.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 358

I discovered today that some of my recent pictures of Mow the goat and his dog friends are featured in a story by Diane Herbst on the popular Tonic.com website. The pictures looked good and they even gave me a photo credit. Diane also writes for People Magazine and Newsweek, so maybe the famous goat will wind up on the cover of Newsweek one of these days.

Too bad you can't tag animals on Facebook. I've noticed that the pet pictures I took at last Saturday's Santa Paws event are starting to pop up all over the place on people's profile pages. People love these pictures. I'd be more that happy to take pet portraits year round, but unfortunately there isn't much demand unless I'm donating my time at an animal rescue event. I guess it makes sense. At the rescue photo events I participate in, you can get a package of pictures for $30 that would cost $400 or more at my normal day rate.

I wish I could tell you about a new client or an exciting project I was working on. Nope. Not today. It wasn't that kind of day. I spent my time punching new holes in Santa's wide black leather belt because Santa lost a little weight this year. Tomorrow I need to wash the Christmas backdrop at one of those laundromats with the huge washing machines because some of the dogs peed on it last week. You definitely don't want the smell of dog pee on your photo backdrop, because then all the dogs will insist on peeing on the same spot. Such is the life of a pet photographer.

None of the dogs were very well behaved at training class tonight. It was too cold. Most of the dogs in our class looked like they'd much rather be sitting at home in front of the fireplace, instead of doing obedience excercises in a cold and windy field. I don't blame them. They'd better get used to it though. It's a long time until Spring.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 357

Brrr. Winter has definitely arrived. Even though I went to high school in Alaska and spent several Winters in Idaho, I just can't take the cold anymore. I guess I've lived in the South to long. On days like this when the temperature never climbs above the mid-thirties, I walk around freezing all day. I cranked up the heat and wore a sweater around the house while I was working, but I was still cold.

Our neighbors have started burning designer logs in their fireplaces again. When I go outside to walk the dogs, the neighborhood smells like Colorado is burning. The smell is almost overpowering. I lived in Aspen right after I graduated from college and I know the distinct fragrance of piñon pine. I never dreamed I'd see people paying several dollars for a small log of the stuff in the grocery store however. These expensive designer logs really seem to have caught on. You can buy mesquite firewood, as well as maple, pecan and the current favorite, piñon pine just about anywhere. We don't even have a fireplace, but on cold days like this it doesn't seem to matter. The smell of the neighbor's burning logs comes right through the walls.

Dash had to go to the vet for another antigen shot today. His skin condition has really improved since he started taking the injections. Now, we only have to have the shots once every two weeks. While I was over at the vet, I discovered that the story of Mow, the friendly goat and his dog pals is still alive. Evidently someone at People Magazine is doing a feature on the animals and they want me to send them some of the pictures I've been taking.

This month is just racing by. It's time to get my invoices out again. It's just about time to get Christmas cards in the mail too. I don't think I'll send cards out this year though. I don't remember many mailing addresses anyway. Sending e-mail has become so ubiquitous that actual physical addresses just gather dust and are eventually forgotten. Every time I change computers, I lose a ton of old addresses because I never bother to export all the contact information over to the new computer. It just doesn't seem to matter anymore. If you lose someone on your Rollodex, you'll eventually find them again on Facebook anyway.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 356

I started the day by driving Janet to her periodontist for dental surgery. Next week she'll return the favor by driving me to Medical City for my own minor surgery. Both of us used to to be able to go years without visiting the doctor, but those days appear to be over. Lately, if I don't have a doctor's appointment myself, I'm taking one of the the dogs to the vet. It's always something. My health hasn't really changed all that much, but I'm definitely trying to take a little better care of myself.

I'm also trying my best not to let the holidays put me behind the 8-ball at work. The Christmas season is traditionally a busy time for advertisers. I always seem to have a lot more website updates during December. Today I worked my way through a laundry list of small changes and there'll probably be more tomorrow. I've given up on getting caught up on everything this year. All I want now is not to get even further behind. I'm in awe of bloggers who manage to keep half a dozen different blogs current at the same time. Once I get my work done for the day, this one little blog is more than enough for me.

I am getting some help from you guys though. Today, I'm very pleased to feature our very first blogger Dalmatian of the Day. Today's dog is Emma, a sweet deaf Dalmatian who was rescued recently by Katherine at Shoot Me Now. Be sure to visit Katherine's blog and read more about Emma's adventures. Emma may be deaf, but her sense of smell is still intact. If there is a tennis ball anywhere in the room, Emma will find it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 355

When we tallied up the receipts from yesterday's photo shoot, we made over $1000 for the Dalmatians. This wasn't quite as good as we did a few weeks ago at Camp Bow Wow, but considering that none of yesterday's customers were big spenders, I think the day was a huge success. Our recent Facebook donation campaign has already pulled in over $500 as well. We are also selling poinsettia plants and doing gift wrapping at local shopping malls. Just about every dime we make goes to pay vet and kennel bills. Sometimes our kennel bill alone is over $200 a week. The work is hard and we are always running out of money, but at least you feel like you are doing something good when you find an animal a home. That's a lot more than I can say for the advertising work I do. If I still didn't have bills to pay, I'd probably spend all my time working with animal rescue groups. I love watching that show called Dog Town on the National Geographic Channel. It would be nice to feel like your job really mattered. You can tell that all the people on the show who work at the Dog Town animal sanctuary love their jobs. Most people I know hate their jobs.

It was a cool, brisk day and I thought our dogs would love this afternoon's outing to the Wagging Tail Dog Park. There were plenty of dogs to play with today, including Dash's favorite playmates: puppies and Beagles. Dot and Dash did absolutely nothing when they got to the park though. They just followed us around like they were glued to us and didn't play with anyone. I've come to accept the fact that dogs can be just as moody as people. I just never know what causes the mood swings. Next week they'll probably be racing around the park and getting muddy again.

Maybe the dogs are worrying about money. I know I am. Real estate taxes are due in a few weeks and my plan of paying all the property taxes with stock market gains isn't exactly working out as planned.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 354

Today was a pet picture marathon. I drove up to K-9 University to set up for the Santa Paws fundraiser around 8 AM this morning and didn't get home again until after 6 PM. We had a great turnout and Santa and I were busy all day. Since K-9 University is a boarding kennel that caters to customers with larger dogs, we had a lot of Rottweilers, German Shepards and Weimaraners. There were a lot of Dalmatians too. Basically, we had our hands full. The smaller dogs are easy, because Santa can just hold them in his lap. When people start bringing in Rottweilers and Great Danes however, you've got to expect things to get knocked over. Amazingly, the set survived the long day and everything made it back to the studio in one piece. The closest I came to disaster was when one of the customers sat on my iPhone.

These pet photo events have been great fundraisers for Dalmatian Rescue, but I'll be glad when we're finished for the year. Only one more event to go next weekend and we're done. Taking pictures of dogs is murder on your knees. I am constantly kneeling and standing, trying to catch that brief moment when the dog is pointed in the right direction and his tongue isn't hanging halfway to the floor. The dogs seldom stay in one place for very long. By the end of the day I feel like someone should wheel me out on a stretcher. Too bad I had to give up drinking. I could really use a Martini right now.

I didn't have time for the normal Saturday errands today, so tomorrow will be a catch-up day. I still have some grocery shopping to do and it's time to start getting all the leaves off the roof. I did manage to get the Christmas tree up though. You can probably guess what it's decorated with. Little Dalmatian ornaments of course.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 353

I should have learned by now never to let my bookkeeping slide. When I get busy, I tend to let bills and invoices accumulate in piles to deal with later. Well, later was today. What a mess! It took me most of the afternoon to get everything in balance again. My business isn't large enough to justify a full time accountant, so I do everything myself and then get a real accountant to sort things out whenever I get totally confused. Things used to be easier when bills and payments always arrived by mail. Now, in this enlightened age of electronic payments, someone might send you money using Paypal and then forget to tell you about it. Other people might want their invoices sent as PDF files, but not have the right viewer to read them. Everyone wants you to go "paperless" but few people have come up with a convenient way to keep track of everything.

Money seems to have acquired a life of its own. It ebbs and flows all over the place without any human intervention. I don't even have to pull my wallet out when I buy something from the Apple store. I think they just read my brain or something. I never stop at toll booths anymore either. There's a little electronic thing on my windshield that automatically calculates which toll road I'm on and debits my bank account. It's a brave new world. Despite all these seemingly automatic ways to spend money, there unfortunately still isn't any automatic way to make money.

I definitely need to make some money for the Dalmatians tomorrow. We're having the second of our three planned holiday Santa Paws pet photo events up at K-9 University. We made almost $1500 for the dogs a few weeks ago, so I'm hoping that we can do as well this weekend. Dalmatian Rescue certainly needs the money. We've had several dogs that required complicated surgeries this year and the vet bills really add up quickly.

It would be nice if animal rescue was just about walking dogs and cleaning kennel runs. It's mostly about raising money though. The dogs need food and medicine. There are boarding bills to pay. Almost all the strays have health issues when we get them. I guess human charities must be the same way. That's probably why the March of Dimes robo-dialer relentlessly calls the house five times a day, always asking for money. This is the dilemma just about every charity faces. How do you raise the money you need to stay afloat without totally irritating your potential donors?

I don't think blogging is the anwser. Using the blog for fundraising is kind of like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. I've had the Paypal donation tool sitting over in the left column with all the other widgets for over a month now and nobody has given one dime. Curiously, I tried something very similar on Facebook recently and we raised over $435 in less than a week. I don't know if Facebook users are more generous or if they just have more money. It is odd that there's such a difference though. Hmm, maybe if I disguised my Dalmatian Rescue widget as an EC or Adgitize badge, someone might click on it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 352

I needed to get a haircut today, so despite my desire to completely avoid the Christmas mall traffic, I headed over to Northpark. I actually got lucky and found a parking place on my first pass through the parking lot. The mall was quite festive, with huge lighted Christmas trees every twenty feet or so and enough red poinsettia plants to sink a ship. I walked right by Santa on my way to see Betty at Toni & Guy. The Northpark Santa is legendary. He's one of those high-end Santas with a genuine long white beard. I think that Shawn, our Dalmatian Rescue Santa, is just as realistic looking though. The only difference is that Shawn has dogs sit on his lap, instead of the long line of little kids waiting for this guy.

Betty filled me in on all her Christmas plans as she cut my hair, which reminded me that I hadn't put our tree up yet. I actually haven't done anything related to Christmas yet, but there's still plenty of time. I'm Mr. last minute: one of those guys who is still doing his shopping on Christmas Eve. Luckily, Christmas isn't very complex these days. We don't mail out cards anymore and the dogs are certainly easy to shop for. Just wrap up a few tennis balls and dog treats and you're done.

I can't believe what a social media maven I've become. Now I've got the blog feeding to my Facebook account, Facebook feeding Twitter and Twitter referring people back to old websites I've almost forgotten. Everything is connected to everything else....and the leg bone connected to the knee bone, and the knee bone connected to the thigh bone...etc. I've already noticed that people are much more likely to leave a comment about a blog post on my Facebook wall than they are to just comment directly on the blog itself. What's that all about?

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Day 351

I am the world's worst at time management. For the second time in as many weeks, I scheduled two different things at exactly the same time. What's it going to be? A haircut with Betty or a trip to the podiatrist? Hmmm...continued foot pain , or a haircut? I rescheduled my appointment with Betty for tomorrow. The podiatrist was a friendly gentleman who basically told me that the answer to my foot pain was to start wearing some hideously unattractive shoes he showed me in a catalog. I didn't have a bone fracture as I suspected. I just needed better arch support. He also told me to stop walking around barefoot all day and sold me some high-tech carbon fiber shoe inserts that cost more that the shoes I'll be putting them in. After looking at the sign on the doctor's exam room wall, I didn't tell him any of my own foot pain theories, which tend to involve two tugging Dalmatians and lots of nearby squirrels. Walking the dogs five miles a day has definitely improved my bone density and has allowed me to get up to level 5 on a cardio stress test, but it has destroyed my joints in the process. The dogs are very strong and when they see something they want, like a rabbit or a pile of horse poop, it can be hard to hold on to them. I'm convinced that I'll be dealing with a permanently dislocated shoulder for the rest of my life.

Dot and Dash wore their sweaters to training class for the frst time this season. Several of the other dogs had coats on as well. Needless to say, it was chilly at class tonight. Another cold front blew through late this afternoon and it is supposed to send temperatures plunging into the low 30's this evening. This isn't that surprising for this time of year. The surprising thing was that it was almost 80 degrees yesterday. Like they say...if you don't like Texas weather, just wait a few days.

It's hard to believe that it's almost time for another Santa Paws photo event. I'm going over to the storage warehouse tomorrow and begin packing up my equipment again. This Saturday's event will be the second of three this year, and based on the number of reservations, it looks like we're going to have a good crowd. There's a Dalmatian Rescue Casino Party on Friday night too. I have a feeling that I'm going to be very tired on Sunday morning.

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Day 350

Here's how I get behind on things. I typically start my day by returning calls and e-mails, mentally crossing each call off my "to do" list as I dial the number. Mission accomplished? Well, not really. I tend to forget that very few of these calls are actually answered by a real person. They are just messages dropped into the black hole of voice mail. I haven't really accomplished anything at all because I haven't reached anyone. Weeks later, the same person will call again with the same question. Usually they've forgotten all about their earlier call and so have I. It's kind of a miracle that anything ever gets resolved at all. I do get lucky sometimes though, and someone actually answers the phone.

Today was definitely a phone tag kind of day. I didn't get through to many people and the few who did pick up the phone must have eaten too much turkey for Thanksgiving because I didn't seem to make sense to any of them. Some days are like this. There's a fair chance that by this time tomorrow everything will make sense again.

Some of you may remember my big adventure with the CAT Scan machine yesterday. Well the verdict is in. I have bladder stones. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it certainly could have been worse. I'll need to have minor surgery later this month so they can zap the stones with some kind of laser device. Don't even ask how they get the laser gizmo inside of me. I don't want to talk about it.

I'm overdue for a haircut again, so I made an appointment to see Betty tomorrow. I'm sure while I'm at Northpark an invisible force will suck me inside the Apple store and force me to buy even more stuff that I don't really need.

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Day 349

I had to see a new doctor today. I hate to add additional doctors to the growing list of physicians I already see, because it means I have to sit in somebody's lobby for forty-five minutes filling out page-after-page of new patient paper work. It seems like most doctors still haven't entered the information age. They still keep floor-to-ceiling file folders full of paper. Wouldn't it be easier to just fill out this information once and store it in the cloud somewhere where all the doctors could use it? It makes sense to me anyway.

Part of today's exam involved getting a CAT Scan. CT Scans are much easier for me than getting an MRI done. Getting placed inside one of those MRI machines is somewhat like being placed in a coffin. They're incredibly loud too. With a CAT Scan, they just slide your body through a big ring. It's all very Sci-Fi with lots of lights and rotating gizmos. The whole experience leaves you feeling like you ought to be teleported to another planet or something when you go through the ring. I'm always kind of disappointed that I end up in the same little room where I started. These days I always ask the nurse to burn me a disc of the scans. You never know when an image of my brain or some other body part is exactly what I'm looking for to illustrate the blog.

Cyber Monday came and went without me buying anything at all. When did Cyber Monday get to be such a big deal anyway? I'm pretty sure that if I got this huge urge to buy a computer tomorrow, I could find exactly the same sort of deals that retailers were touting today. And before I forget... I knew this would happen. I haven't even been on Facebook a month yet and I've already been "unfriended." Oh well...easy come, easy go.

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